TNA Impact Results 11-4: Eric Young, Bobby Roode, Davey Richards, and Eddie Edwards

Last week, Gail Kim and Awesome Kong main evented the show and Gail advanced in the tournament. DJZ beat the X Division Champion Tigre Uno, while current NXT wrestler James Storm advanced by beating Abyss with his cowbell and hitting two superkicks. Aiden O’Shea beat Crazzy Steve, and Drew Galloway beat Grado. The show begins with a recap of last week’s events. Eddie Edwards faces Davey Richards tonight, while the main event will feature Robert Roode vs. Eric Young, and we’ll get a Jeff Hardy interview. Josh says that tonight is the most pivotal of nights and talks about it being a must-win situation for both Davey and Eddie.

Madison Rayne faces Brooke tonight as well. We see a brief clip of the Hardy interview talking about how he can’t believe he broke his leg after winning the tag titles. Madison Rayne comes out to face Brooke. Madison says that the knockouts started the women’s wrestling revolution and how what Ronda Rousey has done for UFC, they’ve done for wrestling. Madison says if she doesn’t win, it’s over for her with this series. She likes having the odds against her while Brooke just quickly comes down. 

Madison Rayne vs. Brooke 

They start off with a back and forth collar-and-elbow tieup and a “Brooke’s gotta booty” chant starts. Brooke slips out of a headlock and grabs her wrist in an odd spot. Ah – it’s her fingers – she broke some in her last match. Brooke goes down due to the fingers again. Madison chops away and knocks her down with a dreadful forearm. Brooke gets a flapjack and a chant from the fans. Brooke goes up top and gets 2 off the flying elbow. Brooke drops her because she can’t lift her for the facebuster, so Madison hits the Rayne Drop for the win. Madison picks her up and holds her hand high. Eric Young rants and raves about being cheated in the World Title Series and how he makes his own luck. After a break, we see a recap of the last year of the Roode vs. EY feud. Pope and Josh ramble on for a bit while Spud comes down to face Bram in the World Title Series.

Rockstar Spud vs. Bram

Pope picks Bram to win, while Josh mocks him for calling that a fearless prediction. Spud slaps Bram and lands some forearms. Spud would be so great in WWE as Spudley Dudley. Spud bites the thumb to gain a further advantage. Bram sends him down and misses a pair of elbows. Bram slams him down and sends him to the floor onto the steps hard. Bram fish-hooks him and sends him into the ring. Bram misses a Stinger splash and Spud runs wild with corner forearms. Drop toehold leads to a shining enzuiguri. Bram avoids the Underdog and wants the Impaler DDT, but Spud schoolboys him for 2. Bram hits the Impaler for the win, and we see a graphic showing that he’s up 3 points.

Bobby says he could care less what EY says to him, and still blames him for losing the TNA Title earlier this year. He says he’s KOTM Champion and by winning this series, he’ll close out the year with two titles. So I guess the KOTM Title’s importance is now that it’s a bragging right if you win the World Title. We see another clip of Jeff Hardy talking about how great it was to see Matt as World Champion at BFG in North Carolina. Josh uses more WWE speak as the title is in a “state of abeyance” while we learn that Manik vs. Mandrews is up next. Mandrews skates down to the ring while Manik saunters down to one of the better themes in the company right now.

Manik vs. Mandrews

They have a little standoff to start before Mandrews trips him off the ropes. Lots of wacky armbars and cradles here before Mandrews focuses on a hammerlock. Mandrews goes for a reverse rana, but eats a face plant and Manik locks him in a Muta lock surfboard combination before Manik transitions into a straightjacket choke. They exchange more cradles before Mandrews gets 2 off a sunset flip. This is one of the most mat wrestling-heavy matches in this division in quite some time. Manik stands on the elbow and stomps it. Manik eats a backdrop and a dropkick before being hit with a giant DDT. Manik grabs him the tiger codebreaker, but it gets countered. Mandrews goes for a standing moonsault, but eats a knee and gets locked in an armbar. Mandrews takes him down with a Northern Lights suplex and gets a standing corkscrew moonsault and goes up top. Shooting Star Suplex is met with knees before a modified Go To Sleep wins for Manik. This was one of the best X division matches in quite some time – Mandrews has shined quite a bit in each of his World Title Series matches. 

We see a recap of the Wolves beating Brian Myers and Trevor Lee way back… a few months ago in the super-rushed GFW vs. TNA invasion. The Wolves say they’re in wrestling for the competition, and tonight, the best man will win. The Jeff Hardy interview is next. But first, we get EY saying that he’s going to attack Roode at the right time – so him just standing in a hallway is strategy. Jeff talks about the big bump at Lockdown off the cage and how his comeback proved that he could be as good as ever. They show clips of the cage match, but him doing a see-saw dive off the top of it. The Hardys winning the Ultimate X for the tag titles is shown and we see him ride dirt bikes. He says he made three big jumping spots on his property. He did one, then landed a second one, and wanted to topple this third one for years. He says if he’d hit it harder, he could’ve landed it. He was knocked out and his first thought was breaking his leg after the win. We’ll hear more of it later. Next, it’s the battle of the Wolves. Davey comes out first in black, while Eddie is in white. We see Matt Hardy beating Davey and Robbie E beating Eddie.

Davey Richards vs. Eddie Edwards

They tie-up and go back and forth. They then grab hands and try to win the leverage game. Back and forth monkey flips get quick covers for 2. We get some cool mini-kip ups to bring them to their feet and exchange headlocks. ‘O Connor roll leads to a submission and then a cradle for 2. They each grab one another’s foot in a spot I don’t recall seeing before. They stand off for an ad break . Davey avoids a dropkick and lands one of his own. Eddie gets an inverted atomic drop and a superkick for 2. Eddie lands a running back elbow for 2. Eddie gets a snapmare and chinlock before landing a facebuster. 

Davey lands a running elbow in the corner and a big spin kick to Eddie up top. Davey lands a big superplex, but can’t follow up. They exchange big forearms and Eddie hits an even bigger flapjack facebuster for 2.5. Davey avoids the backpack stunner and lands a big kick and German for 2. In the final minute, we get a series of cradles before a chop exchange. They go for kicks and chops and Davey lands a lariat, but can’t cover in time – it’s a draw so they each get one point. They raise each other’s hands and had yet another fantastic match. Between that and Manik vs. Mandrews, this has been a very satisfying show wrstling-wise. Series recap video shows how Hardy is advancing to the round of 16, and the second part of the Jeff interview is coming up.

We see clips of Davey vs. Eddie and they go to the back with Davey saying that Eddie chopped his claw paint off. Eddie says if he couldn’t get the win, he’s glad they at least got a draw. Davey says that the third person in the ring was the Wolves Nation.  Davey says that the Wolves are an organic team, and we see more clips of Jeff Hardy at BFG. Jeff says he was heartbroken watching Matt give up the tag titles on Impact. Jeff says that sucked, but he was glad to see Matt go for the World Title. He goes through working for EC3 and being humiliated, but gets in a great line about making sure Tyrus watched Sesame Street. He loved seeing Matt win the title at BFG in NC in a repeat of clips they showed earlier today and last week. Jeff says yeah, he was a bit unfair to EC3, but he’s glad that Matt did the brave thing and gave up the title. He’s been banned from every show, but he’ll use that time to heal up and hopefully get in the ring again soon. 

Roode stands around a truck and asks where EY is and he confronts him – EY tells him he already won the fight because he’s got Roode worried about him. Well, that was an unsatisfying way to spend an hour of TV time – but it makes for a fine story point. Josh and Pope play Swipe Left and Swipe Right. Pope predicts Shera to win. Shera is out not doing his dance, but in his blue non-Khoya gear at least. King doesn’t want to take about what Shera has done to him stealing his girls. This is apparently a storyline that’s been happening or something.

Mahabali Shera vs. Kenny King

Shera twirls his mustache while King does pushups. King locks on a headlock , but he gets tackled down. King takes him down with a headlock and gets backdropped hard. Kenny King gets a blockbuster, but Shera goes to the floor. King goes for a tornado dive and mostly misses Shera. Pope says that Shera isn’t dancing in the series because it’s serious business. I greatly appreciate them at least trying to find logical ways to patch things together. King goes for the shotgun knee shot in the corner, but it misses. Shera misses a lariat a mile above King’s head, but lands a better one to send King down. Shera lands a scary suplex holding onto King’s tights for dear life to hang onto him. Shera gets the Sky High to win. Kenny King tried, but he couldn’t do much with Shera, who is far too limited to do be on national TV at this point.

Josh recaps tonight’s matches and Matt Hardy faces Eddie next week. Gail Kim faces Madison Rayne, while Mr. Anderson faces EC3 in the main event. We get another recap of the EY vs. Roode rivalry. Eric Young comes out and they show clips of him in the series and he talks about being a world class pro wrestler. Roode comes out while Josh talks about how Roode demolished Storm in the series, but Storm beat Abyss. Roode poses and we go to a break.

Eric Young vs. Robert Roode

Roode slugs away in the corner and sends him up high for a backdrop. EY is sent to the floor and he bides his time and insults the fans. A little kid in a Superman shirt almost flinches as EY threatens to punch him. EY hops off the top rope and eats a punch to the gut, doing a perfect flip as a result. EY rakes the eyes to avoid a Roode Bomb and lands a neckbreaker. Josh blamed EY for sending TNA on a downward spiral in 2015. Josh recaps all of their epic wars, and leaves out that at least one of them was hyped up as their final match ever. EY gets a chinlock, but Roode fights out and gets a dropkick slightly above the belly for 2. EY charges, but eats an elbow after yelling at the fans. EY takes a big shot and does a delayed Flair Flop. Roode punches away some more, but EY flips to the apron and lands a shoulder to the gut. EY eats a spinebuster for 2. EY avoids the fisherman suplex, while Roode avoids the piledriver. EY rushes in and eats a boot. EY uses the ref to distract Roode and hits a piledriver to win the match. This was technically fine, but nothing special or memorable at all. Josh runs down next week’s card and we see hype clips for its matches.  To see every screenshot taken for the show, just click here.